


Won't Let You Be Alone

by Zoe13



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Brief Self-Harm, F/M, borderline verbal abuse?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 17:22:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10141391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoe13/pseuds/Zoe13
Summary: Following Polly's disappearance at the end of episode 6, Betty is thrown into a panic only worsened by her mother. Jughead helps her sort out the pieces and discovers one of her dark secrets.He'd also really like to talk about that kiss earlier, but now is probably not the time, is it?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Set immediately after the end of episode 6. This fic disregards the trailer and sneak peeks for episode 7 and will probably make no sense once it airs, but it's just a thought I had and hey, I had some fun writing it. Betty is an extremely relateable character for me. I'm not as sweet or adorable by any means haha but her mother reminds me a scary amount of my own mother. The only difference is that I have more siblings and my personality is a bit more like Jughead's in a way. I'm a dark, sarcastic, and somewhat bitter person, though I've been better about it lately, working on being more open and optimistic. I love these two so much and I'm so glad they've (at least hopefully) found each other. I mean this is probably an unpopular opinion, but Archie drives me up a goddamn wall and I currently can't stand him.

Jughead’s immediate thought is, of course, that panic and flight have a tendency to be the first reactions of people in shock and grief- that is, people not thinking straight, as people seem to most often be. His second thought is of Betty, seeing as she’s right there and, well, reeling with shock and her own grief.  He really shouldn’t be surprised that she panics and runs too. After a momentary pause to double check that what she’s seeing is real, that is. He only briefly catches sight of the blood on the jagged edges of the broken glass before he’s running after her, trying to catch her arm or her jacket or  _ something, goddammit Betty _ before she gets herself sick or lost or- well, he can come across as unfeeling at times, but he cares about Betty, obviously, and he  _ really  _ doesn’t want her to get hurt any more than she already has been. 

“Betty, Betty,  _ wait,”  _ he says as he finally catches up to her. She’s surprisingly fast, and they’re already halfway down the hall. Her panic catches the attention of a nearby employee, and before they know it, people are flooding in and back out of the room, completely ignoring the two soaking wet teens standing in the hallway. “Bets, let me get you home. We can’t do anything right now.

“No, no,  _ Jugs _ , what if she’s out there right now? Shouldn’t we- maybe we should-” she’s rambling, wringing her hands and pacing and  _ shaking _ and he really needs to get her home. Get her dry and calm and not- not worrying about anything and everything except herself. 

“ _ Betty _ ,” he says, and it’s so firm she finally stops and catches his gaze, dropping her hands. “There’s nothing we can do right now. She’s probably been gone for a while. There was a lot of rain on the floor, the window must have been broken for quite some time. I hate to say it, but right now we’re not the most equipped people to find her, are we?”

“N-no…” Betty’s lip trembles. “But where will she go? What about- what about the baby? She could hurt one or both of them out there…”

“I know. Let’s talk about it at your house, alright? I know that I’m freezing and you’re freezing and we’re just in the way here.”

As if to prove his point, someone rams into his shoulder whilst rushing past them, and Betty’s big eyes are full of fear as she nods, finally, biting her lip. “Okay, I- okay.”

It seems to take too long to get there. Jughead has spent his fair share of time out in the rain with no roof or underneath a leaky one, but he’s always had a blanket or something to hide under, and he’s getting that protective urgency to keep Betty safe again. He sort of wants to hate it, but he can’t. Unfortunately, they’re just in time to catch Alice on her way out, flustered and angry and looking for someone to blame that isn’t herself or deceased. Betty, as usual, is right there. 

“This is your fault,” she hisses at her daughter. “If you hadn’t gone and told her about Jason she wouldn’t be out there right now!”

Despite knowing at least some of the extent of Alice Cooper’s insanity in regards to Polly, the Blossoms, and her only “remaining” daughter, Jughead is too taken aback at the accusation to jump to Betty’s defense. It’s  _ whose _ fault now?

“Wh-what?” is all that Betty can stammer, only getting wetter and colder by the minute as her mother keeps her out in the pouring rain and tears her down.

“Polly, Betty,  _ Polly! _ God, are you even listening? She’s gone! Out there in this godforsaken weather alone, pregnant, and  _ insane!  _ And now I get to go clean up after you!” She’s practically spitting in her face at this point, and Jughead watches something foreign flash across Betty’s face as her fists clench and her eyes spark. Her jaw sets firmly and he holds his breath, waiting for the clash of wills, before suddenly it’s just gone. The fury he’d seen in her eyes for just a moment dissipates in even less time, and Alice is left glaring down at her now cowering daughter.

Jughead has seen enough. 

“What the _ fuck? _ ” he swears, and Alice’s head swivels around to look at him. 

“Excuse you?” she says crisply.

“Oh, I didn’t ask,” he says threateningly. “I don’t care if you “excuse me” or hate me or yell at me, I don’t care if you think I’m bad news or a bad influence or just bad in general, or whatever you say about anyone Betty makes friends with. What I care about is your daughter, and you’re just standing on your high horse and beating her down about something that  _ you _ caused, something that  _ she’s _ trying to fix.” He takes a step forward almost without even noticing, and Alice takes a step back before looking surprised at herself. He feels a little smug at that- it seems like it’s been a while since she’s lost any ground with anyone. “You can make Betty think that she’s going insane all you want, but it won’t help the fact that you’re really just driving  _ yourself  _ insane. So I suggest that you leave her alone and go find the daughter whose life you managed to more than just  _ mostly  _ fuck up. Maybe try to fix things, if it’s not too late. If you haven’t  _ cracked _ yourself and maybe gone too far.” 

He doesn’t really know, nor does he care, how long he ends up in that staring match with Alice Cooper, white hot fury written all over her face. She’s angry, yes, but she’s also in shock. Maybe she’ll go write this down later, use it to further what she calls a  _ journalism career _ and what Jughead calls a gossip column disaster. A vindictive, gossipy, bitter old lady pile of horseshit meant to tear down the Blossoms and anyone that reminds her of them. He’s not feeling eloquent right now, not when he’s maintaining his best unaffected and serious glare. She can do what she wants to the Blossoms, but he will, and has, put himself between her and Betty, and if he asks himself way deep down under all the sarcasm and dark humor, he’s willing to do it till kingdom come. He’s not afraid of Alice because he doesn’t care what the people in this godforsaken town think, and he’ll just climb in Betty’s window or call the police over her abusive parenting if she tries to stop him. Well. Go talk to the police. He may actually not have a phone.

Only when her phone buzzes does she crack. She doesn’t even pause to look down at it, she just lets out a scream of frustrated rage and shoves him aside, storming down the sidewalk to her car. Jughead suddenly realizes he’s got a hand held protectively out in front of Betty and that she’s staring at him, wide eyed and silent. 

Needless to say, he’s in sort of a sour mood.

“Come on, let’s get you inside,” he mutters. Betty just follows, still silent, as he opens the door Alice forgot to lock in her march down the steps to wreck her daughter for the billionth time. Betty’s still quiet when they reach her room, and while she’s not necessarily a  _ loud _ person, she does generally talk. And usually a lot more when she’s upset. The words tend to flood out of her when she’s anxious or stressed, and- well, Jughead really ought to stop watching her like a creep when they all hang out. She’s just- well, she stands out. 

But right now all she’s doing is standing in the middle of her room, dripping carelessly onto the floor as she stares blankly at the wall. Still in shock, then. He hates seeing her look so empty. 

“Betty,” he starts, and she turns to look at him with haunted eyes, her hands still clenched into fists. 

“No-” her voice cracks. “I...she’s right.”

“Like  _ hell _ she’s right!” Jughead explodes. He never explodes. At his angriest, he uses his quick wit to cut down the (usually human) cause of said anger in a hurried but rarely raised voice. Betty’s the last person he ever thought would cause him to raise it, but he can only guess that it’s because he cares  _ so damn much _ (too damn much) and she’s giving him a sense of urgency, desperation to show her that her mother is wrong, that she’s always wrong. “You know who’s right? I’m right. Because I’m always right, okay, and you have to just...listen to me. Okay, maybe I’m not always right, but I am at least usually, and your mother is dead wrong. Polly needed to know. What she did with that information is not your fault and was not your decision. Your parents were lying to her, they were manipulating her like they manipulate you, and she deserves the truth. Don’t you always want the truth, even when it hurts?”

“I don’t know…” Betty whispers.

“Well, why the hell do you hang out with me, then?” Jughead asks. “Cause you know, I have a reputation for being overly blunt and honest.” There’s a hint of a smile and he’s only that much more desperate to bring it back in full force. Betty ought to always be smiling. But then, just like her righteous anger, it’s gone, and he doesn’t know how to coax it out of her. 

“She was so heartbroken, Jugs,” she says finally, voice cracking. “I had to break the news to her because my parents,  _ her _ parents, wouldn’t. I thought she knew…”

“That’s not your fault,” he says, surprising himself with his gentleness. Betty deserves gentleness, though.

“I wish it was!” she bursts out, and then she too looks shocked at herself, but she continues anyway. “It would- it would be easier if it was my fault. I could deal with it, I could know the motives and the reasons why and how and I would still be able to trust my own-”

She’s blinking back tears rapidly, and she turns her face away from him, biting her lip. Her fists tighten, and Jughead knows he’s in over his head, but there’s no one else. Who’s going to help her, her mom? Her dad? Archie? He scoffs inwardly. Everyone around her has to have failed her miserably for  _ him  _ to be the one here with her in her dark moment. He doesn’t always understand normal human emotion, just his own. He’s odd, he’s the outcast. He doesn’t cry in front of other people or tell his friends about the girl he’s crushing on, though the last may be because his friends consist of a best friend on probation, half friends that Betty knows, and, well, the girl he’s crushing on. If he’s totally honest, and he’s usually morbidly so, it’s down to just her. 

Godammit, Jughead can be gentle and loving and tender if he needs to be, he just hasn’t found a good enough reason to be until now. 

“Betty, hey, Bets…” Touch. She always responds to touch- she even seeks it out frequently, so he tentatively and gently wraps his hand around her upper arm. “None of this is your fault, and it sounds like Polly knows that. That means that if she’s going to come to someone, if she’s going to trust someone...it will be you. She’s not running away from you, she’s running away from your parents. You’re all she’s got right now.”

Betty’s lips are still quivering, the tears only just barely held captive in her eyes by sheer stubbornness, and if Jughead was one for cliches he’d say it breaks his heart. It still does, he’s just not going to say it. 

“I’m tired... I’m just so tired,” she says in response, and he knows.  _ He knows. _ It’s written all over her, all of the time. In her sloping shoulders and unnecessary apologies and heartbreak over her torn up family and stupid best friend.

He also knows that she doesn’t just mean physically, but he carefully guides her toward her closet anyway. “Let’s get you warm and dry and you can rest, alright? We won’t be able to find anything tonight, but first thing in the morning we can go back. We can hunt for clues together, if you’d like. Would you like that?”

“Yeah,” she says weakly. She wakes up a bit then, finding them both towels and retreating to the bathroom to change. All Jughead can do is take off his soaked jacket, but only the hems of his pants are still wet, and he takes off his shoes, lamenting the fact that he’ll have to remove his beloved hat and let it dry. Betty returns with a hoodie that she quietly explains belongs to Archie, and Jughead thanks her for it but leaves it draped over a chair. He doesn’t want to look at it right now. Not after earlier and not after Archie started being such a dumbass. He wants to talk to Betty about what happened, but he’s a little afraid she switched topics on him because she’s sweet and just went through her own heartbreak and doesn’t want to hurt him. He’s fairly certain he wasn’t misreading things, though, so all he can do is file it away for a better time and pick the situation apart in his own calculating way. 

“Can you sit with me for a bit?” she asks him in small voice as she curls up on her bed against her headboard, and who is he to say no? He’s never really managed to when it comes to her, not yet at least, and he doesn’t plan on starting right now when she’s over there looking so... _ broken. _

“Yeah, of course,” he says, and she smiles at him as he sits on the bed, shuffling up against the headboard as well. He’s taken aback at the smile. He’s seen it a thousand times, but it’s never looked this wrong. She ought to smile all the time but she also ought to be able to mean it. To actually be happy. He’d rather she let her sadness and anger show and be real with him than smile and hide it away. 

She’s obviously lost in thought again, though, as her eyes start filling up with tears, and he once again notices the tightly clenched fists paired with her set jaw. She settles into his side, curled up against him, and he reaches down to smooth out one of her hands, opening her fist. She flashes a look of panic up at him right before she flinches. 

He flips her hand over and then drops it as if it burnt him. There are crescent shaped marks indented in her palms, deep and angry looking and set at odd angles as if she’d readjusted her nails multiple times before digging in again and again. She’s clenching the other one tightly again and he scrambles for it.

“Hey, hey, stop it, please-” His voice catches like it did earlier (and goddamn it, Juggy, stop thinking about that right now!), catching in his throat as he grabs her right hand and tugs her fist open. She moves to close her left and he does the first thing he can think of- he laces his fingers through hers and traps them, careful not to touch the wounds on her palms. “Betty, how- how long have you been doing that?”

Without the self-inflicted pain to calm her raging emotions, the tears start to fall down her face like rain and her lips are shaking. She can’t speak for a moment, but he waits patiently. 

“I-” she gasps in a deep breath and lets it stutter out. “I don’t know, Juggy, it’s the only thing that works.”

He thinks he gets how she uses it. It’s like a dam, holding back the emotions that her mother has told her will make her insane. It’s her own prescription for the things that make her imperfect. But Jughead, he loves the things that make her imperfect just as much as he hates the things her mother thinks will make her perfect. He feels as if he’s just started a tug-o-war battle with her mother over her, and he’d never ever want to take away someone’s control like that if they hadn’t already been raised to believe they couldn’t have it anyway. He’s not fighting for her like she’s a prize to be won, he’s fighting for her to learn to fight for herself because that’s important. It’s all-important to him that she stand up for herself. She’s strong, she’s just currently battling what’s been ingrained in her from a young age. He doesn’t necessarily understand, but he  _ knows. _ And he cares. He hopes that’s enough. 

“That’s alright,” he says after a moment. “You don’t have to know. I just...wish you wouldn’t do it.”

It’s a lame way to put how he’s feeling. Normally the words just flow, but all day he’s been at a loss.  _ Also _ is all he says to the girl he’s got feelings for before he kisses her.  _ I just wish you wouldn’t do it _ is all he says when that girl is-

Hurting herself. She’s hurting herself, and he’s sitting there thinking that how pathetic he is actually matters. That’s for another day. 

“The world just keeps hurting you, doesn’t it?” he says, and it’s not a question and she doesn’t bother answering. “It’s not fair. You deserve so much more. You deserve better. I wish I could give it to you.”

He sees the struggle on her face. She wants to deny it, wants to spin it as her own fault or say she doesn’t need to start feeling sorry for herself. But even she sees the truth in that this  _ isn’t  _ her fault. Her parents  _ are  _ crazy, but she’s not. The only crazy thing about her is how kind she is. How well she’s carried herself through all of this. And if you ask Jughead...he’s not surprised right now. He’s hurt for her sake, he’s upset, but he’s not surprised.

“Why didn’t I see you?” she whispers.

“See me?” he asks, but he gets it when she looks at him. 

“I was so busy thinking that Archie and I were the next logical step that I never...it’s like I was blind.” She scoffs at herself. “We’d never be right for each other. He never understood me, did he? But then again, I overlooked you in just the same way.”

“You saw me faster than anyone else ever has,” he tells her honestly. “In any way. I don’t become friends with just anyone, and I tend to wait for them to offer it. And you- you did. So yeah, you saw me. And I see you.”

“I interrupted things earlier,” she says. “I’m sorry. I’ve been distracted and worried and anxious, but I’m always like that about something, aren’t I? I can’t be like this all the time. It was...important to you.

His face falls.  _ To you. _ That doesn’t sound good. 

“And to me!” she hastens to say, but he’s still not sure what to think. “I’m sorry. I can’t string together coherent sentences right now.”

“It’s alright, we don’t have to talk about it,” he says resignedly.

“No, no, I want to,” she insists. “I said it was important to you because that means it’s important to me. In all of this, you’re the only person who’s been really there for me. Archie’s off being confused and -”

“Self-centered?”

“Well, I was going to say just generally being a teenage boy, but I suppose the two correlate.” She laughs lightly and it’s only halfway to bitter. “But yeah. He’s been distracted, and so has everyone else and I can’t really go ask Veronica to be here for me when she’s got enough going on, though I’m sure you have plenty better things to do.” She scoffs. “There’s a whole world of better things to do than sit here and watch me have a breakdown. It’s so  _ stupid.” _

“It’s not stupid. It’s the most real thing I can think of and I appreciate that,” he tells her firmly. “Maybe you didn’t choose to have me be here for this, but I value honesty and I try to give it as much as I look for it.  _ I want to be here. _ There’s nothing better for me to do right now because I like being around you, Bets. I really do.”

“What did I do to get this?” she asks softly. “Because now...I want this to work.”

Jughead has never been one for dancing or public displays or anything of the sort, but he kind of wants to go shout from the rooftops or something equally ridiculous and laughable because right now he doesn’t care that half of the world feels like it's just a rotten pile of garbage or that he doesn’t know where he’s going to live for the time being. Betty...maybe feels the same way?

“Are you sure?” he asks hesitantly. “Because it was soon, I know, I should have given you more time. And I’ll be fine if- if you’re not. If you don’t want it. I like being friends too.”

He’s once again at a loss for words, once again being more vulnerable in front of her than he’s been with anyone in  _ years _ , and she suddenly looks so sad again, looking up at him with those big blue eyes. Her hands twitch, moving to curl into fists but stopping, and he realizes it’s just his own hands that are keeping her from hurting herself again. He tightens his grip and her face softens.

“I’m sure,” she says. “You’re good for me, Juggy, and I hope that maybe I’m somehow good for you.”

“You are,” he says. “I…” he stops, wetting his lips nervously and swallowing hard again. “I’m not too afraid to be vulnerable with you.”

There. He said it. It’s as much as he can say right now, but it speaks volumes in his language. She seems to understand, forgoing words and simply turning her head to press her face into his shoulder. Betty seems to crave touch, and he wonders if she’s like him, if she’s unaccustomed to gentleness and physical contact, if she feels touch starved but doesn’t know where to look for it. But where he hides behind a wall of disdain for humans and feels a need to avoid what he wants, she openly seeks it out. She’s braver than he is, and he’ll readily admit it. He wants to put his arm around her, looks for ways to bring her closer or comfort her better, but he won’t release her hands, not while he can’t trust her not to hurt herself further. He pulls her hands toward him instead, pressing them against his chest and laying his head gently on top of hers, and she sighs contentedly. 

“It’ll be alright, Bets,” he says softly. “We’ll find her.”

“We have to,” she says. “I can’t let her be alone, not anymore.”

“I won’t let you be alone either,” he says, and she presses a kiss to his shoulder before settling her head back down. 

  
Alice doesn’t bother looking in Betty’s room the next morning. If she had, she would have seen them both lying fast asleep in Betty’s bed, curled up together innocently with Betty’s hands still pressed against Jughead’s chest and their foreheads touching.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to let me know what you think? I may even consider writing more Bughead fics if anyone enjoys this one.


End file.
